The civil service is "prehistoric and potty" and in "desperate"
need of reform, a senior Conservative minister has said.

Nick Boles, the planning minister, said he is deeply "frustrated" with the way that the civil service "promotes, picks and rewards" people.

His criticism of the civil service came as Francis Maude, the Tory Cabinet Secretary, accused civil servants of "a bias to inertia".

Mr Maude conceded that the government is set to miss targets for reforming the civil service. Hesaid: "This bias to inertia, against innovation, is hugely frustrating for those who do want change.

"They can become hugely disillusioned. We need to learn from Silicon Valley and from the hi-tech companies I visited in Israel last week. Their mantra is to try new things, even if some fail. But if you do fail, fail fast. And learn from it."

Speaking at the Institute for Government, Mr Boles said: "I sit on Francis's civil service reform board, I totally support the attempts to reform the structure of the civil service.

"Anybody who also sits in on those meetings will tell you that nobody has been as frustrated with some of the way that particular programme is being managed and expressed than me.

"I think the structure of the civil service - the way it promotes people, the way it picks people, the way it rewards people, the qualities it encourages in people - almost all of it is potty.

"The fact that I have good officials giving me superb advice is largely testament to them and their individual qualities. They are trying to work in a system that is prehistoric. The civil service as a structure desperately needs reform."

Mr Boles said that the "benchmark" by which he sets all his plans is the need to "build more houses" in Britain.

He said: "I want to build more houses. I know the problem is land. So I want to supply more land for building houses. That gives you a benchmark against which to make every decision"

He said he treats every day in his post as if it will be his last job in government. He said: "It may well be that either the Prime Minister will chose differently or because we won't be in government after 2015.

"It would be impossible to do this job well if you were basically and primarily worried about your short term political share price. If you didn't have that it would be much harder to work out."

He also distanced himself from a spoof Twitter account set up in his name called "General Boles". He said: "I am in a very surreal position. There is a spoof of me called General Boles on Twitter. He is much funnier than I will ever be.

"He knows an enormous amount about what I'm doing, a worrying amount. It isn't me. It's like having a cyber stalker. At the moment it's quite benign, but you sort of feel he could turn on you."